


Their First and Last Murder Victim

by mynameisyarra



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisyarra/pseuds/mynameisyarra
Summary: The Phantom Thieves kept Goro alive in their anger, guilt, and regrets.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Phantom Thieves of Hearts
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	Their First and Last Murder Victim

Akechi Goro died in Shido's Palace with the fanfare of martyrdom and the sound of a gunshot. The only witnesses at his funeral were the Phantom Thieves.

Amamiya Ren went and converted Metatron into a gun, and used it in the fight against Shadow Shido. Poetic, wasn't it? It was as if Goro himself pulled the trigger to change Shido's heart.

And then, with all the glory of a false god, Yaldabaoth gave the boy in front of It a revelation. That he and Goro were nothing but pawns. By the end of it, Ren used the same gun he used to change Shido's heart to deliver justice to defy Its divinity.

They won their fight, The Metaverse was gone, and all that was left of Goro's death were their memory of it. Now it was time for the mourning period.

* * *

Nobody realized when, and they didn't know the others were doing the same thing, but at some point, they referred to him by his given name. Goro was all of them, fragmented, fractured, and broken into pieces. He was their anger towards authority, their frustration towards the guardians who neglected them, their sorrow of being left behind by death of a loved one, their yearning, wanting, craving the acknowledgement of those who have harmed them. He was all of them desperately clinging at vengeance to keep on going. To keep on living.

Every single one of them were haunted by a ghost of Goro.

Haru was haunted by the boy who killed her father. He taunted her, sneered at her, told her that she would have pulled the trigger herself in the real world, had he not did it in her stead. And that, secretly, she was thankful she had someone else to blame, that she didn't have to live with a man whose heart was changed while she herself would always remember the man who sold her.

Futaba was haunted by the words on her screen. By the intel she had gathered, by the hours she spent digging into Goro's past, finding out who his mother was, _what_ his mother was, how she was used so thoroughly, how his life was in the foster system, and how she was glad she had Sojiro who took her in. Futaba was haunted by how angry she was that she understood his actions, that she understood why he chose to go ahead and killed her mother. She would never forgive him, but she wished he was a villain with no face or history that trailed behind him.

Makoto was haunted by the boy who her sister seemed to care more about her. She was haunted by how angry she was that Goro used her sister, how angry she _felt_ that he too was used, and angry at herself for being jealous that he monopolized Sae's time and attention. She was angry that she even considered that perhaps, they would have gotten along, had Sae brought him home, that perhaps she could have treated her as a brother like Sae once did.

Yusuke was haunted by the scenery surrounding Goro's death. He could never put them into words, so he drew hundreds of sketches from memories. All in progress. All incomplete. All would never be finished.

Ann and Morgana were haunted by the mask of a pleasant boy Goro would wear around them. The friend who would give them recommendation of a good bakery that he had heard from the grapevines. The teenage boy who couldn't enter a place so popular with women that he would draw attention even without being a famous detective, so he asked Ann to buy it in his place. The awkward guy who bought Morgana sushi to win him over. They were haunted by the what-ifs. Ann wasn't so good at acting, but she fooled him anyway because she genuinely loved spending time with him, to the point of forgetting temporarily that he was a spy. Morgana wondered if it was the same for him.

Ryuji said he would never forgive the guy, but in the end he was haunted by an annoyingly famous guy who couldn't walk down the street without being hounded by rabid fans. The guy who apologized to Ryuji for getting him involved. The guy who got so surprised that Ryuji helped him escape. The guy who let Ryuji drank his soda after running so he could smugly tell Ryuji that it would make him choke... _after_ he choked. The guy who wasn't the murderer they all knew and hated. He was... just a guy.

Ren was haunted by all the warning signs. All the desperate attempts at making a connection with him at LeBlanc. All of those he ignored because he knew Goro would sell them out. Both of them using and manipulating each other for their own gains. He was haunted by the black mask who laughed like a maniac, the person who wore a demented version of a heroic outfit. He was haunted by a cognitive that was nothing but a tool to be used and discarded. He was haunted by the loss of his gun, and he wondered where Goro's body would be, now that The Metaverse was erased.

* * *

Akechi Goro was the only murder they ever committed, and in the years that follow never once would his name ever passed their lips.

* * *

But he would always be at the edge of their vision, a ghost that they could never speak to.

**Author's Note:**

> [There's precedent that collective suffering can do fucky things in the world of Persona.](https://yarrayora.tumblr.com/post/616870218211442688)


End file.
